Iraq Aff Wave 1

Uniqueness O/W Link

Past human rights abuses has already sealed the fate of the United States in many parts of the world

Paddock and Stack ‘4 (Richard C. Paddock and Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers, Abuse 'Makes the U.S. Totally Lose Credibility' , May 5^th 2004, http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=1259&paper=1584)

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Photographs depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops prompted a wave of outrage across the Islamic world Tuesday as Muslims condemned the United States for what they perceived as cruelty and hypocrisy. For many Muslims already angry about the invasion of Iraq and Washington's support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the photos of naked and hooded Iraqis subjected to humiliation at the hands of their American guards confirmed the widespread view that Washington has no desire to bring human rights to the occupied country. "People are outraged," said Mona Makram-Ebeid, a professor of political science at American University in Cairo. "Even after everything else that's happened, this is the final drop that makes the U.S. totally lose credibility. Whatever they say about human rights, about democracy, nobody is listening anymore."

Troops abuses aren’t perceived

No link – US soldiers aren’t visible in Iraq because of legal agreements

Chulov, 10 (Martin, “Iraq Violence Set to Delay Troop Withdrawal,” May 12^th, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/12/iraq-us-troop-withdrawal-delay)

US patrols are now seldom seen on the streets of Baghdad, where the terms of a security agreement between Baghdad and Washington are being followed strictly: this relegates them to secondary partners and means US troops cannot leave their bases without Iraqi permission. US commanders have grown accustomed to being masters of the land no longer, but they have recently grown increasingly concerned about what they will leave behind. Zebari said: "The mother of all mistakes that they made was changing their mission from liberation to occupation and then legalising that through a security council resolution."

Demo Promo Fails – General

U.S. attempts to spread democracy backfires.

Eugene Gholz and Daryl G. Press (doctoral candidates in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Harvey M. Sapolsky (Professor of Public Policy and Organization in the Department of Political Science at M.I.T. and Director of the M.I.T. Defense and Arms Control Studies (DACS) Program Spring 1997 “come home America – the strategy of restraint in the face of temptation” International Security, Vol. 21, No. 4

We agree with the premise of this argument: we would like democracy to flourish overseas, we prefer peace abroad to war, and we support human rights. Furthermore, we agree that U.S. foreign policy should promote these values. But we diverge from advocates of a Wilsonian foreign policy on the role of military force in achieving these objectives. The United States should reward liberal democracies with trade opportunities and sanction countries that attack their neighbors or brutalize their citizens. But fighting overseas in the name of democracy, peace, and an end to human suffering would be dangerous and counterproductive. Spreading liberal values abroad is an interest that many Americans share, but it is not a national security interest. We insist on maintaining the distinction between America’s security at home and its values abroad for the same reason that advocates try to link them: genuine security concerns justify the sacrifice of many lives and much money. However, America’s freedom from physical attack or coercion does not depend on peace in Africa, democracy in Latin America, or human rights in Cambodia. Advocates of “enlargement” who want to spread democracy connect their policy with security by noting that democracies tend not to fight each other.96 More democracies means fewer potential adversaries. Supporters of collective security point out that an indivisible peace, by definition, leaves everyone safe. But while democracies are unlikely to fight the United States, even non-democracies tend not to be crazy enough to attack it. And while global peace would, by definition, mean peace for America, wars on distant continents will only threaten U.S. security if the United States travels overseas to join in. America’s interest in democracy and peace is real, but it is unrelated to national security. Even if democracy, peace, and human rights are not security interests of the United States, America should still use military force to achieve them if the costs were low, the gains were significant, and the alternatives were unsatisfying. However, none of these conditions is met. Spreading democracy will undermine local elites.97 They will impugn America’s global political ideals by attributing old imperialist motives. When they choose to fight back, the cost of combat may be horrendous.98 Even very low levels of resistance might require large peacekeeping forces and surprising financial expense.99 Spreading democracy by military force would be very costly. Even worse, there are good reasons to believe that a military crusade for democracy would fail. American wars in Southeast Asia turned out badly, and the United States could not bring democracy to the Somalis. Over the next few years we will know whether the operation in Haiti stabilized its electoral system, but the prospects are not bright.’00 Where democracy was successfully created—in Germany, Japan, and Italy—the United States had to conquer and occupy foreign territory, grant generous economic assistance, and defend the new governments from external threats.’°’ Even American democracy took time to form, required a civil war to confirm, has involved much learning, and after two hundred years is still not perfect. The 10th Mountain Division could not have rewritten that American history, nor can it force the pace of other countries’ evolution.